Category: Magic: The Gathering Arena

If our review whet your appetite for Magic: The Gathering Arena or you’re just looking forward to more people to face off against, then your opportunity is fast approaching. The Magic: The Gathering Arena open beta has gotten its confirmed start date along with some other noteworthy updates.

MTG Arena already boasts itself as the most complete digital form of the original CCG to date, but open beta a number of new updates including new battlegrounds, new music and new art. The open beta will also see the Guilds of Ravnica card set arrive to the game, along with the new Sealed Events mode.

The digital game is also building a bridge into the real world with some special promotions. Every Guilds of Ravnica Planeswalker deck will also include a code to bring that same deck to Arena, and every prerelease pack will include a code for one entry into a Sealed Event in the digital CCG. Those who buy booster packs in the real world can also get a chance to unlock three free boosters in Arena. Bear in mind, however, that these offers are all limited to one per account.

MTG Arena will make its global arrival to open beta on Thursday, September 27th at 1pm PDT/4pm EST.

Our Thoughts

While the game’s monetization model is still something others will likely rub their chins and ponder, it’s clear that Magic: The Gathering Arena is the most true-to-life representation of the physical CCG in the digital space. That will likely be more than enough for fans of this game to hop in.

The point of playing any online CCG is, of course, to get cards and build a deck to beat your competition. So, naturally, the nature of the MTG Arena economy and how it’s used to let its players earn those cards is worth a dev blog post. As was the case in a recent dev blog post.

The in-game economy of Arena is broken up into two parts: Gold, which is earned by playing the game; and Gems, which are bought with real money. In both cases, these currencies will let players unlock packs, events and more. Gems will be an alternative for those who don’t want to wait to earn enough Gold to unlock things, but will not be used to bar gameplay content.

MTG fans and CCG players in general will likely be familiar with the concept of the first three, but the final two bear further explanation. Wildcards can randomly appear in any Booster you open in place of any rarity of card, while The Vault is a progress bar that fills towards a new reward with every fifth or more duplicate of a card you receive.

All of the game’s economy systems are described as ones that follow core principles of making player time as valuable as possible, offering a variety of cards and making sure players get the cards they want. “MTG Arena is based on a simple idea: we want everyone to be able to experience Magic: The Gathering,” reads the post.

Our Thoughts

It all sounds good on paper, but of course the proof will be in the testing pudding. Opening a Booster pack and getting a bundle of duplicates never feels good, so we’re hoping that the game feels rewarding and varied, especially for those who are looking to construct specific decks.

Looks like earlier testing leading up to this point was a little long, but ultimately successful. Wizards of the Coast is ready to tie down a Magic: The Gathering Arena closed beta date.

The latest blog post from Wizards’ Digital details everything players can expect, including the start date of Monday, December 4th. The closed beta will be online 24/7 barring maintenance or other technical issues and will include a new pool of invited testers along with those who participated in the previous alpha.

The scope of the CCG’s content is due to be limited as of right now, with Constructed matches and cards from the newly-released Ixalan set available, though players should watch the game’s website for news on additional features this coming January. The test will also be under an NDA until “rough edges” are smoothed out.

You can read up on all of the details on the Magic: The Gathering website.

Our Thoughts

This closed beta does seem to be starting small in terms of content, but the tester pool also sounds pretty large, so likely they’re focusing on infrastructure first and mechanics and gameplay later. In any case, we hope those who are invited enjoy themselves and are able to help make MTG Arena a great online CCG.

Arguably one of the progenitors of the collectible card game is on its way at last to the competitive online CCG realm. Wizards’ Digital Games Studio has officially confirmed the start of Magic: The Gathering Arena closed beta testing along with details on what will be playable.

Testing will kick off on Friday, November 3rd with a stress test to make sure the servers are ready for the strain of a full beta. The test will be populated with selected “closed beta priority access holders”. Assuming the stress test goes well, things ramp up with additional priority invitees playing during specified days over the next few weeks. Players will be invited via email and are subject to an NDA.

The plan is to officially start closed beta testing of MTG Arena on Thursday, November 30th. The beta build will feature best-of-one Ranked and Constructed matches, with plans to add more game modes over the course of testing. The window for testing appears to be pretty open as the devs have not specified a date for beta to end.

Players are encouraged to head to the MTG Arena website to sign up for a chance to be selected for testing. You can also read up on the game here.

Our Thoughts

While arguably it took WotC long enough to bring Magic: The Gathering to the online CCG world, it’s most definitely better late than never. We hope that all of the testing planned goes well and the king of CCGs can make its way to players soon!